Faith That Takes Hold

When I think back on those days with my wife in the hospital, it still amazes me how much peace God gave me. The doctors came in more than once and sat down beside me, giving me that look that doctors give when they’ve run out of hope. They’d pat me on the shoulder and say, “You need to prepare yourself. We don’t think she’s going to make it.” But I would look them right in the eye and tell them, “You don’t know my God.”

Afterward, I’d go down to the chapel—not to beg or plead—but to thank the Lord. That’s where my tears would finally fall. I didn’t cry out of doubt or fear, but because of the pain I saw my wife going through. Even then, in the middle of it all, I’d thank God for bringing her through. I’d walk out of that chapel strengthened every time.

That was one of the first seasons of my life where faith stopped being a message and became a lifeline. I had to learn that faith isn’t pretending something isn’t happening—it’s knowing that what God has said is happening, even when nothing around you looks like it.

Not long after my wife's recovery, I had my own lesson to learn. I came down with strep throat and a fever and went to the walk-in clinic. Sitting in that waiting room, I heard the voice of the Lord speak quietly in my heart: “Do you believe you’re healed?”

“Yes, Lord,” I said. “I believe by Your stripes I’m healed.”[1]

Then He asked, “When’s the last time someone sat in a waiting room waiting to be seen by a doctor who was healed?”

That hit me like a lightning bolt. Faith isn’t faith without action. If I truly believed I was healed, then sitting there waiting to be examined was an act of doubt, not belief. So I quietly got up, walked out, and went to my car. By the time I started the engine, the fever broke and the pain in my throat was gone.

That moment changed me forever. It was as if God had opened my eyes to a different dimension—the realm of faith.

Sometime later, I faced another test. I had developed an ingrown toenail that became badly infected, and a red streak began running up my leg. When some close friends from church came over—our pastor and his wife (a nurse) —she took one look at it and said, “David, that’s blood poisoning! You need to get to the ER right now!”

But I had perfect peace. I told her, “I’m not watching symptoms anymore. Either I believe God’s Word or I don’t—and I’ve already decided I do.” I knew the Word of God was infallible, undeniable, and rock solid. I could literally stake my life on it.

I went to bed that night with peace in my heart and woke up the next morning completely healed. No red streak, no pain, no infection. God had done it again.

That experience taught me something profound about faith: faith operates in the unseen realm. It doesn’t deny reality—it just chooses to believe a higher reality.

The apostle Paul said,

“For we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

This is one of the most misunderstood truths in all of Christianity. Paul was telling us that what we can see, touch, and feel—the physical world—is temporary. It’s passing away. But the unseen realm, the realm of God’s promises, His Word, His power—that realm is eternal. That’s where faith operates.

It’s like the movie The Matrix. Once Neo realized that the world he saw wasn’t real—that it was a computer simulation—he began to operate on a completely different level. The rules that used to limit him no longer applied. The bullets that once could kill him lost their power. He discovered that reality was subject to a higher system—a system he could master once he understood the truth.

That’s exactly what happens when a believer realizes who they are in Christ. The world we live in is ruled by the god of this world—Satan[2]—but he only operates through illusion and deception. Pain, sickness, fear—these are part of the “matrix” of the fallen world system designed to keep us bound. But when we are “born again,” our citizenship changes. We are seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus,[3] and that means we live by a different set of laws—the laws of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.[4]

When we walk by faith and not by sight,[5] we step out of the illusion of this fallen system and into the reality of the Kingdom of God. And in that Kingdom, healing isn’t something we beg for—it’s something we already have because of what Jesus did on the cross.

Faith, then, is learning to see the unseen. It’s learning to walk in that higher reality, to believe what God has said even when the world screams the opposite. The moment we realize the unseen is more real than the seen, everything changes. Just like Neo, once you see it, you can’t unsee it—and you’ll never live the same way again.

So when Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matthew 11:12), He wasn’t talking about physical aggression. He was describing spiritual determination. Faith that takes hold of the unseen refuses to be denied. It doesn’t wait for permission—it acts on the Word of God as final authority. That’s what it means to be “violent” in faith: to seize hold of God’s promises and refuse to let go until they manifest in this world.

That’s how my wife was healed. That’s how I was healed. And that’s how every believer can live—by the kind of faith that takes hold and won’t let go.

Footnotes

[1]: Isaiah 53:5 – “...and with his stripes we are healed.”

[2]: 2 Corinthians 4:4 – “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not...”

[3]: Ephesians 2:6 – “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

[4]: Romans 8:2 – “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

[5]: 2 Corinthians 5:7 – “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”